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Show IMsbristow jnjlVvl n mil i THE STORY THUS FAR: Spratt Iler-long, Iler-long, motion picture producer, married Elizabeth after her first husband, Arthur Klttredpe, had been reported killed in World War I. Elizabeth had been orphaned or-phaned when a baby and raised by her aunt and uncle in Tuisa, where she met and married Arthur. Shortly after their marriage, Arthur enlisted, and soon afterwards aft-erwards was reported killed. Elizabeth moved to Los Angeles, where she met and married Spratt. Elizabeth overheard her children reading about and laughing at the World War I days. Kessler, a German Ger-man refugee working on a motion picture script, and his daughter were coming to dinner. Dick was to stay and entertain the daughter. I think I think that for the first time in my life I've nearly had hysterica." hys-terica." "Elizabeth, what " "Please don't pay any attention to me. I'm behaving like a moron. But it is funny, Spratt. We're sitting sit-ting on the edge of a volcano dangling dan-gling our legs over the crater, and Dick knows it I've just heard him talking, so grim and hard he frightened fright-ened me, and in fifteen minutes nothing noth-ing was important to him except that that German girl was eight years old and he didn't have to take her out. Oh, that resilience! Did I ever have It, I wonder?" She began to laugh again, this time more softly. Spratt shrugged, went into the bathroom bath-room and turned on the water. When he came out Elizabeth, having made herself be quiet, was wiping her eyes. Spratt stood over her, shaking his head In confusion. "Did anything happen this afternoon, Elizabeth? You can tell me." "Not a thing. I came home and got dressed for dinner and lay on the chaise-longue In my room till it I 1 Jl - rail Kessler, you took a load off my shoulders in our conference yesterday. yester-day. You understand stories I wish you could tell me how to make all these English grammar writers understand un-derstand them." "Perhaps it is only sometimes viewing situations as other people would view them, and not entirely from the unchanging viewpoint of one's self." "Am I supposed to tell that to the inhabitants of this ego-ridden capital?" Spratt laughed ruefully and shook his head. "Yes, Lydia?" he said as his secretary came in. Spratt's visitor answered for him. "He wants to see the sketches, and we are no longer in conference, Miss Fraser." He moved forward in his chair, placed his heavy hand on the head of his heavy cane, and pushed himself into a standing position. It was not an easy movement, but he accomplished it with the skill of long practice. Lydia opened the door for him. A clever girl, she managed to make it look like a gesture of deference instead of necessary aid. Their new writer could not stand without the support of his cane, and since he had only his right hand this made it impossible for him to open a door without pushing a chair toward it so he could sit down. Spratt had risen too, and walked over to the entrance. "Then I'll pick you up at your office of-fice this evening, as close to six-thirty six-thirty as I can, and we'll go to my home for dinner." "Thank you, Mr. Herlong." He smiled courteously at Lydia. "And thank you. Miss Fraser." Lydia went with him to the outer door of the bungalow, then returned to Spratt's inner office with the set sketches in her hand. "A remarkable remark-able man, Kessler," Spratt observed as he took the sketches. "Isn't he? To sink into that script forty-eight hours and come up with a solution. And him half dead, too. Did the Nazis beat him up, or was he in the war, or what?" "I've no idea. You don't ask about those things, though you can't help wondering. Maybe nothing but an auto accident." "He does manage to bow from the waist in spite of it. Do you suppose he's going to continue forever calling call-ing everybody around here Mr. and Miss?" Spratt laughed a little, and shrugged. "Probably. Germans are very formal. Never mind. I like him." "So do I," said Lydia. Meanwhile the subject of their conversation con-versation walked to his own bungalow, bunga-low, which was conveniently located next door, since his power of walking walk-ing was limited to very short distances. dis-tances. Explaining to his secretary that Mr. Herlong was to call for him later, he went through the reception room into his private office beyond. He went over to the mirror on the wall and stood there looking at his reflection. It was not possible that she could recognize him. Between them lay not merely twenty-four years, but the wreckage made by that shell at Chateau-Thierry, which had destroyed him so terribly that it had taken one of the greatest surgeons sur-geons in Germany five years to put together the semblance of a body that he now possessed. A makeshift make-shift that had been uncertain enough in normal times, this frame of his could hardly, after the effort to which it had been forced when he had to get out of Germany, be expected ex-pected to last much longer. It was only because he was sure he could not last much longer that he was willing now to let himself see Elizabeth. Eliza-beth. He had never expected to see her again. In those frightful days in the German hospital, he had not wanted to. He had wanted her to be rid of him, as desperately as he had wanted to be rid of himself. Even now he trembled when he remembered re-membered that slow, tortured rebuilding, re-building, insertion of metal strips to replace shattered bones, stretching of shrunken muscles, inadequate food and inadequate anesthetics, his own screams and curses at the man who persisted in keeping him alive when he wanted to die. How that doctor had kept at him, with implacable hands that he himself him-self could see only as instruments of horror, forcing into him the life he did not want, and slowly, through all of it, giving him against his will life that was really life not mere physical existence, but a personality and a will, a re-creation so profound that it seemed quite natural, when he began to realize what was being given him, that along with all the rest he had a new name. Kessler thank heaven, he had thought then, it was easy to say, for in those days the new language had seemed very difficult, though now it was so much his own that when he first came back to the United States he found that he had half forgotten the old. The doctor's name was not so easy Jacoby. How he had dreaded that man at firstl He remembered Jacoby, in the days when he himself did not know a word of German, struggling through a scanty knowledge of English Eng-lish to make him understand what was being done to him, which he did not understand and hated Jacoby Jaco-by for doing, never dreaming then that he was meeting the greatest man he was ever to know in hir life. (TO BE CONTINUED) CHAPTER X "I'm sorry, Dick," Elizabeth continued con-tinued with sympathy. "But the, boss wants to talk pictures with Mr. Kessler after dinner, and you'll have to take care of the girl." Cherry and the two guests were already beginning to laugh at Dick's woebegone face. Dick groaned. "Can she talk?" "I don't know, Dick, but there's a musical show downtown " "Mother, please! Honestly, I what does she look like?" Elizabeth started to say, "I've never seen her," when Cherry put In, "I bet I know. Two yellow braids round her head " ' The others joined, , "Maybe you could play some Wagner records for her." "What about Faust?" "Silly, Faust Is sung In French." "I bet she's fat and has apple-cheeks." apple-cheeks." "She's probably intellectual. Lots of refugees are." "Talk to her about food. They all like to eat." "I can't talk to her about anything," any-thing," stormed Dick. "Mother, I've got a date! Why can't the boss tell Mr. Thlngum to leave his daughter daugh-ter at home? Why do I have to and shut up, all of you. I think you're being unsympathetic and awful." aw-ful." "Dick, please be a good sport," Elizabeth urged. "This doesn't happen hap-pen often." "It does too. You remember that horrible girl from New York who was all teeth that I had to take out when her family had dinner here? But this is worse. A foreigner who can't even talk except to say glub-glub!" glub-glub!" "How do you know she can't talk? Her father speaks English." Dick groaned. "Be nice about it, Dick," pled Elizabeth. "She'll probably have a very good time if you'll let her. Remember Re-member she's in a strange country, and most of those refugees have had some very unpleasant experiences. Can't you be sorry for them at all?" "It's easy to be sorry for refugees," refu-gees," said Dick, "when you don't have to put up with them." - Torn between a desire to laugh and tell him he needn't do it, and a realization that Mr. Kessler's daughter must be taken care of somehow if he and Spratt were to have a chance to talk business, Elizabeth Eliz-abeth did not answer immediately. She was glad to hear the sound of a key in the front door. "There's the boss," said Cherry, getting up. "Now we can eat!" Dick exclaimed ex-claimed as though glad to have something to rejoice about. He got up to pour a cocktail for his father. Spratt came In and greeted them all. "You' ve no idea what a comfortable com-fortable picture you make around the fire," he remarked as Elizabeth took his coat and Dick gave him a Martini. "Where's Brian?" "Having dinner with Peter Stern. Cherry, go to the kitchen and tell them the boss is here." "What have you been doing?" asked Spratt. "Listening to the radio?" ra-dio?" "No, what's going on?" "The same, only worse. All hell's loose in Russia. Come on upstairs with me while I get cleaned up," he Invited Elizabeth. "Cherry, tell them I'll be ready in fifteen minutes." min-utes." "Wait a minute, boss," exclaimed Dick. "I've got something important impor-tant to ask you. Do I have to take that refugee girl on a date tomorrow tomor-row night?" "What refugee girl?" "The one who's coming here to dinner with her old man. Can't she possibly " Spratt drew a long breath and started to laugh. "I forgot to tell you. Kessler's daughter," he said, "is eight years old." The four youngsters gave long simultaneous si-multaneous whistles. "Oh joy, oh rapture unconfined!" sang Dick. "My life is renewed. I don't have to! Did you hear, everybody? She's eight years old! Why didn't you tell me? What were you doing talking about Russia when all the time you knew that girl was eight years old? Me sitting up here dying and you've got to bring up Russia!" Elizabeth got out of the room ahead of Spratt and ran up the stairs. He followed her. When he came into his bedroom he found her crumpled crum-pled up in his reading chair. She was laughing uncontrollably. Spratt stood watching her in amazement. "Elizabeth, what in the world is the matter with you?" For a moment she could not answer. an-swer. With an effort she caught her breath, saying, "N nothing. Only "Do I have to take that refugee girl on a date tomorrow night?" was time to get out the cocktails." She stood up. "I'm sorry for being so foolish, Spratt. But every now and then well, maybe sometimes you've got to laugh so you won't scream." "All right," said Spratt, "leave it at that" He never pressed her for explanations, knowing if there was anything she intended to explain he would get it eventually without asking. ask-ing. "You'd better go and do something some-thing to your face. You've laughed and cried it streaky." "All right, I will." Slipping her hands into his, she stood up. "And thank you for being such a calm person. Most men would either have called me a fool or asked a thousand questions." With an expression of mingled sympathy and amusement, Spratt kissed her. "You're not a fool. Incidentally, In-cidentally, you look mighty well in that outfit." "It's the hostess gown you gave me," Elizabeth reminded him as she went into her room to obliterate the tracks on her face. Spratt was waiting at the head of the stairs. She smiled at him reassuringly re-assuringly and they started down, and he smiled back. They went in to dinner with the others. "Oh boy," said Dick as they sat down. "Shrimps to start with. I love 'em." "So do I," said Spratt, and ate the first one. "Quite a sauce, Elizabeth," Eliza-beth," he observed. "A decent writer writ-er on that picture for a change, and a good dinner " He grinned at his offspring. "What have the millionaires million-aires got that we haven't got?" "Dyspepsia," said Dick. At half-past four the following afternoon, aft-ernoon, Spratt was winding up another an-other conference with the new writer writ-er who had come from Germany. Spratt pushed his chair back from his desk and grinned at his colleague. col-league. "That's all for the present, Kessler. Kess-ler. We can go into more detail tonight to-night after dinner. And you'll start writing the story treatment in the morning?" "Yes, Mr. Herlong." The new writer smiled back, and though his heavy dark beard emphasized his foreignness to this American office and his customary dignity was such that his smile, unlike Spratt's, could hardly be called a grin, he conveyed his acknowledgment of the comradeship com-radeship that springs up swiftly when two workers discover they can work together. "When you will read the synopsis I am sorry, the treatment treat-ment you will forgive my awkwardness awk-wardness with the language?" Spratt chuckled. "In the first place, your language is very rarely awkward, and In the second place I can get a dozen writers who know English grammar for one who can tell a story. I don't mind saying, |